


The Light is Here

by masulevin



Series: A Sword to Pierce the Sun [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Haven (Dragon Age), Pre-Relationship, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8125408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masulevin/pseuds/masulevin
Summary: As Idri struggles through the aftermath of the avalanche at Haven, she uses thoughts of her family and of Cullen to give her strength. She comes to a realization and then a decision about Cullen before he finds her nearly dead in the snow. As he waits for her to be healed, he has a realization of his own.





	

Idri couldn’t remember being so cold in her whole life. Her fingers and nose were past the point of burning; she couldn’t feel them any more. For the first time in her life, she wished to be a mage. At least then she’d be able to conjure up some fire to warm her body. She tried to blow into her fingers to warm them, but even her breath seemed cold to her. Or maybe she just couldn’t feel it on her icy skin.

She couldn’t feel her toes either, but at least they were safely in boots and two layers of socks. They had always been cold in Haven, but never _this_ cold. This was bad enough that she could freeze to death if she stopped moving long enough. As it was, she already had frostbite on her fingers. It was probably on her nose and ears too, but she couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel.

She needed something to think about other than freezing to death or losing her nose as she pushed her way through knee-deep snow, but it was hard. The blizzard still raged around her, sending snow into her eyes and down the collar of her shirt. Another shiver racked her body and she tried to pull her sweater closer to her skin. It was a lovely warm thing, knitted for her by a young mother who was staying in Haven.

Idri hoped the woman and her children had made it out in the evacuation. She hoped that they were warmer than she was.

She almost wished for her cloak, wished that she hadn’t pressed it into Cullen’s hands before running out of the Chantry doors. If she were to die, and she had believed she would, she wanted that cloak to make its way back to her clan, to her daughter.

_Sylvis._

Idri focused on the name as she pressed forward, step after agonizing step. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t stand still or she would succumb to the sleep pulling at her soul. She hadn’t seen a sign of the Inquisition’s march in quite a while, and even then it had just been a broken crate. Anyone could have left that there. It didn’t even have any supplies in it for her.

She tried to remember exactly what Sylvis looked like. Exactly how her white-blonde ringlets settled around her head like a halo, the same as Idri’s did. At least when they weren’t frozen to her skull.

No, she needed to focus. She moved from Sylvis’ hair to her eyes, the same deep brown of her father’s, wherever he was. She thought about the dusting of freckles that Sylvis had earned playing in the sun last summer, about the little birthmark on the back of her neck, about the way she smelled after a bath when they were curled up to sleep in their aravel.

She remembered the way Sylvis would shriek with laughter as they ran through the woods, Idri’s hood drawn up to put the bear ears on display. Idri would roar like the bear she had defeated, either chasing or being chased by the little girl. She remembered the way she would scream her frustration when she couldn’t manage to do something by herself, or when Idri told her no. She was at that age, everyone told her. It was what she told herself whenever she wanted to pull her hair out.

Now she would give anything just to hear her little girl’s voice again, even if it was throwing a tantrum loud enough to bring wandering shems into their camp.

She thought she’d be able to go back home after closing the Breach, but now she knew that was just wistful thinking. Rifts still dotted Thedas. Corypheus and his archdemon and the Red Templars were still hunting for her. The Anchor still burned her palm, even if she couldn’t feel it for the cold.

If she went back home, she would just bring her clan more trouble. The Elder One would track her down and wipe her clan out without a second thought.

The realization would have brought tears to her eyes had she any strength left to cry.

It was all she could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The desire to see her daughter again fueled her, and for a few steps she felt stronger, able to continue marching for as long as it would take to reach wherever the Inquisition had made camp.

The thought of the Inquisition brought another person to the front of her mind, someone else with golden curls and brown eyes.

Cullen had looked horrified when she’d handed her cloak to him. She could tell he wanted to give it back to her, to say something, but she’d run before he had the chance. What would he have told her if she’d just waited a moment longer? More advice, likely. _Make sure that thing hears you._

What would _she_ have said if she’d stayed? _I always enjoyed speaking with you,_ or _I loved every moment of our time together, even when you tried to tell me how stupid it was to recruit the mages._

Or even _If we had more time, I would have fallen even more in love with you than I already have._

Another thought that could have brought tears to her eyes. Elves and humans shouldn’t mix. She’d always been told that growing up. She’d even told Sylvis that a few times, though the girl was still too young to understand.

But somehow, with Cullen, it felt different. It didn’t feel like he saw her as a knife-ear, as a rabbit. It felt like he saw her as a warrior, as a friend, as a _woman._ Whether she was an elf seemed of little importance to how he treated her.

And, oh how he treated her. Always with respect, with kindness, with conversations that sometimes turned awkward and ended with him red and stammering over his words as she tried not to laugh. He always spared a moment for her when she approached, and she suspected it had less to do with her position as the Herald than with the way his eyes softened when he saw her.

The time they had trained together, sparring in front of the recruits, had shown her just how strong he was. He was taller and broader than an elven man, and the thought thrilled her. The memory had helped her bed feel warmer on lonely nights, as she had laid in bed and allowed herself to think of him as more than her Commander, as even more than her friend.

What would he think of Sylvis? She’d never seen him interacting with the children at Haven. Would he accept her daughter or think of her as a nuisance?

Better to find out now before she let him know how she felt. Before he was surprised by the sudden appearance of a wild-eyed toddler following her around… wherever they were going. Because if it was safer there, Sylvis would have to come and join her. She’d _have_ to. Someone from the clan could bring her. She’d be better protected by the whole of the Inquisition army than by their small Dalish clan.

All she had to do was reach the rest of the refugees. And speak to Leliana. And speak to Cullen.

She stumbled to the top of a hill and stared blindly at a pile of embers for a long moment before she realized what it was.

A fire. Someone had been here.

She fell to her knees. The embers were still warm. Someone had been here _recently,_ and she needed to find them. It was so hard to stay awake. She needed to find them.

Find _him_.

She staggered to her feet and made it a few more paces before she fell again. The snow must have soaked through her leggings, but she couldn’t feel it. That should probably worry her, but all she could think about was falling asleep. She was so cold.

A little nap wouldn’t hurt, right? It would give her the energy to finish chasing after everyone.

Just as she was beginning to close her eyes, she thought she heard a familiar voice.

_There! It’s her!_

But that couldn’t be right. She was probably already asleep, already dreaming. She didn’t feel cold anymore, so she had to be asleep. At least the shivering had stopped.

“Thank the Maker!”

That voice was closer. A woman’s.

Cassandra?

She opened her eyes and realized she’d fallen over sideways. Her face was half buried in the snow, and she fought to free herself from its grasp.

Golden hair and amber eyes greeted her. She blinked once before she recognized him. It was Cullen, her Cullen. He’d found her.

She smiled sleepily at him, watching how his face relaxed briefly as he realized she was still alive, then tightened again when he saw her state.

He pulled his cloak off and wrapped it around her, scooping her up out of the snow. He was so strong. She was cradled in his arms, and she’d never felt safer. It would be safe to sleep now. He would keep her safe and warm.

“You saved me,” she murmured, trying to thank him. Her face was buried in the fur collar of his cloak, so he probably didn’t hear.

That was fine. She could thank him when she woke up from her nap.

She was so tired.

\---

_You saved me._

_You saved me._

_You saved me._

Cullen ran those words through his mind over and over as he stood outside Idri’s tent. He couldn’t believe that they had been able to find her after the avalanche and the blizzard and the _archdemon._ He couldn’t believe _he_ had been the one to reach her first, to see that smile that told him she was still alive, to be the one to hear those beautiful words escape from dry throat and chapped lips.

_You saved me._

All of the healers who could be spared were in the tent with the Herald, even the Tevinter who had accused him of thinking like a blood mage. A _blood mage_ of all things.

She had been close to death. On the brink, really. If he had been a few minutes later he would have found her dead, their last hope extinguished.

_His_ last hope extinguished.

He couldn’t even pretend that the joy he had felt when he saw her smile at him was all relief at the Herald being alive. It went far beyond that, past how a Commander should feel, past how even a friend should feel for a friend.

He couldn’t speak the word yet. He couldn’t even think it. It was too big, too presumptuous. It was too _unlikely_ that someone as good as Idri could… _care for_ someone as broken as him. She didn’t know anything about his past, about what he had been through, about what he had _done_ and allowed to happen.

She would reject him if she knew. She had to. There was no other response. He deserved nothing less.

_You saved me._

She would have said that to anyone who found her. If Cassandra had been on his left instead of on his right, she would have gotten to the Herald first. She would be the one Idri credited with her survival, not him. She probably wouldn’t even remember it if she woke up.

_When._ When she woke up, she would have forgotten the smile, the look of utter devotion that he had earned from her, just by being the one to reach her first.

She didn’t know that he had been leading the search. She didn’t know that he had pushed himself almost to the brink of exhaustion trying to find her, searching desperately long after he should have returned to sit by a fire.

She didn’t know how his heart had stopped beating when the avalanche fell and she wasn’t with her team. She didn’t know it hadn’t started beating again until she had smiled at him.

_You saved me._

The silence in the tent broke into a low murmur, and then suddenly Vivienne was at his side. She looked pale from marching through the snow then spending hours tending to the wounded.

Their eyes met and she gave him a tired smile. “She will live.”

Cullen could have collapsed with relief. His shoulders slumped and he swayed on his feet, but he remained standing. Vivienne was staring at him, the same little smile on her face, he he suddenly realized that she knew. Of course she knew. Everyone probably did.

It wasn’t like he could hide his blushing or his stammering.

He could only hope Idri didn’t know of his hopeless… _infatuation_ with her. That would be more embarrassment than he could handle.

Vivienne swept past him, heading to her own tent to sleep. He took her place in Idri’s tent, sitting at the elf’s side amid the rest of the healers.

Idri was asleep, but her skin no longer looked blue, and she was breathing normally. Her nose and the tips of her ears were an ugly red, the last of frostbite the mages hadn’t been able to heal. He suspected her fingers would be the same, but they were hidden under piles of blankets, all that they had been able to spare.

The other healers filtered out slowly, going to either sleep or tend to other wounded. Cullen didn’t know. He couldn’t spare a thought to them. He could only look at Idri’s sleeping face, thanking the Maker that he had been in time to save her life.

Dorian remained in the tent too, sitting on Idri’s other side, keeping a critical eye on her skin. He looked exhausted, tan skin waxy from expending too much mana, but still he stayed to keep watch. He didn’t try to speak to Cullen, and for that the Commander was grateful. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t about Idri, and he didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to be with her.

He propped his elbows on the cot next to her, folding his hands together and resting his forehead on his fists. He took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the tears that threatened to come now that she was safe.

_Though all before me is shadow,_   
_Yet shall the Maker be my guide._   
_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._   
_For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light  
And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

_I am not alone. Even_   
_As I stumble on the path_   
_With my eyes closed, yet I see  
The Light is here._

She was with him again. She was safe. She would be whole.

_You saved me._

She may think that. But she had saved him.

**Author's Note:**

> Cullen's prayer is Trials 1:14-15, copied from the [DA Wiki](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Chant_of_Light_verses).
> 
> Want to leave me feedback, chat, or ask for a specific scene from these two lovebirds? Find me on [Tumblr](http://ma-sulevin.tumblr.com).


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